I have just returned from a wonderful 7-day trip to South Korea. I was invited to keynote for the Korean Christian Home School Convention. It was a great time of ministry as I was able to speak five times and hold a Pastor’s Briefing. It was a very worthwhile trip and I look forward to going back.

Many men in the audience openly wept as I taught on making our homes an embassy of the kingdom of God and opening them by hospitality to be a place where others can taste and see that the Lord is good. I discovered that the culture of South Korea is so competitive that many young school children are driven to despair trying to get into the top 5% of test scores. High school is even worse and the university is very unreasonable.  Then after school is completed the people go to work for the government or in large companies that allow no time for their employees to be with their families. Men normally leave at 6 AM and return home after 9 P.M. six days a week.  I am told that 70 to 80 hour work weeks are not uncommon. People live to work.

The Christian home schooling movement in South Korea is rejecting this unreasonable school and work culture with a new vision for family and family business. As I taught on the relationship between the individual, the family, the church and the state, many said they could see a way to turn their own lives around and to shine as lights in the midst of the darkness of South Korea’s excesses. One dear brother even discussed starting a new men’s movement in South East Asia under the banner “BE REASONABLE!” He is a respected professor at the major university and I encouraged him to write an article or even a book by that title and see what God might do. He thought that God may have placed him in his position just for such a reason.

I will share more of my adventure at church this Sunday as time allows.

Pray for South Korea.  They are very dedicated brothers and sisters in Christ and they are under a tremendous amout of pressure to conform to the materialistic culture that surrounds them.  But how well are we doing here in the United States? Let’s double our efforts to be salt and light in our own country.

Providentially, I taught on this very topic this last Sunday in Gresham Household of Faith.  You can listen to the message online by going to the sermons section of this website.

Blessings in Christ to all.

Gregg